The scientific evidence base on how we learn to read and how to best teach reading has been growing and converging over 40 years. This includes brain imaging studies that show how our brains learn to read and underlying causes of why some students have difficulty learning read.

Sadly, teachers often do not have access to this evidence base. Many teachers report that their preservice education in college did little to prepare them for teaching reading. Many veteran teachers report a lack of quality professional development once hired that could help them improve their reading instruction. And for too long, the reading wars have confused teachers and administrators. These wars started in the 1990's when whole language advocates succeeded in convincing too many schools that learning to read comes naturally without the need for explicit instruction in decoding skills. Even today, there are many reading "experts" that say they promote a "balanced" approach to beginning instruction, but what that actually represents is a little bit of incidental phonics thrown in on top of the same approaches to reading instruction that have not worked for the past 25 years. The latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, were just released—and things aren't looking good for the country's young readers. 

Hoeft and her colleagues have been conducting longitudinal studies looking at the basic neuroscience of reading development. They have found that the one thing that consistently predicted how well a child would learn to read was the growth of white matter in one specific area of the brain – the left temporoparietal region. The amount of white matter that a child arrived with in kindergarten didn’t make a difference, but the change in volume between kindergarten and third grade did....

Writing Disabilities: An Overview by Charles MacArthur offers an excellent summary of why some kids struggle with writing (especially those with learning disabilities), and how some instructional practices can help. MacArthur was part of the panel that wrote “Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers”, an Educator’s Practice Guide published by Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education....

The booklet covers these topics:

• Definition and characteristics of dyslexia
• Assessments for dyslexia
• Identifying effective teaching approaches
• Managing the education of a student with dyslexia
• Transitioning into college
• Recommended resources...

The article includes suggestions for how parents can help their children develop categorizing and main idea skills. It also presents an overview of the two-column note format that students can use when they are reading for homework...

As the standards are implemented in states across the country, parents and teachers have expressed concern regarding the education and literacy skills of students with reading disabilities. Literacy trainers at Keys to Literacy are often asked questions such as:

• What impact will these standards have on students with dyslexia or other disabilities if they cannot read or write at the expected grade level?
• Do the new state assessments allow for accommodations?........

Wendy has created a fantastic website full of articles, videos, and other great resources for teaching struggling readers (the picture of the girl pouting on the first page is priceless). Check out the great work Wendy and the rest of the advisors at Reading Matters to Maine are doing.....

Recently I ran across two articles related to studying the reading brain:

• Learning to Read Does Not End in Fourth Grade by Abby Abrams, Time Magazine
• The Emerging Field of Educational Neuroscience in The Examiner (e-newsletter from the International Dyslexia Association - IDA)

Advances in this area are made every day, but unfortunately very little of what these researchers learn gets in the hands of educators in the field. So I decided to devote this post to providing links to resources about this fascinating topic of reading and the brain.....